50 Harry Potter : Chapter 49: Cause III
But the numbers had a power that was inherent, and that lent itself to everything that had them present.
"Maybe it's better to see Arythmancy as a whole as Applied Numerology." I muttered to myself as I scratched my cheek.
"The meaning of numbers, which is inherent, can be leveraged in different ways."
...
Shifting my eyes to the other set of papers, I started to follow the colored ink that attempted to draw parallels between the Arithmancy section and the Divination-whatever: while the first was at its core simple (in the same way the basis of calculus could be simple), the latter was... hazy.
The entire syllabus of Divination was separated into sub-branches: oneiromancy, tarots, reading of tea leaves, and whatnot. All of those were attempts, more or less successful from user to user, to get a glimpse of the future.
Arithmancy made an appearance from time to time, when using cards to 'read the future' for example, the different kinds of dealings had different chances to be successful based on a multitude of factors, that ranged from the object, or topic you wanted to divine, to the celestial configuration at the time of the reading.
Instead of having the bastard child of math and semiotics, Divination was more akin to painting, and each sub-branch was a different brush.
From my incomplete understanding of the subject, I couldn't guess of a single reason why oneiromancy, tarots, and reading of tea leaves couldn't be used to aim at a single object, each 'brush' refining the details that would escape another.
"Then again, the efficiency of each method..." I frowned, adding a note on another piece of parchment.
"If they are brushes, the precision of all but one of those might be meaningless."
After all, if something so obvious wasn't already an accepted practice, it was more than likely that there was a good reason for it: metaknowledge or not, I was hardly the first person with a working brain to ever study magic.
With a sigh, I dared a look at my quote of what Tom had said at Slughorn's afterparty, which deserved a parchment of its own: The mind exerts Will, the body has Strength, magic holds Power, and the soul is a reflection of them all.
Glancing at the clock, I shook my head and turned my back on my notes: I had the first session with Orion Black, and given the obscene amount of resources that he could make available to me, as Slughorn had pointed out, I could put in the effort of giving him a helping hand now that he needed one.
Tom's words made sense to me in a way that few things outside of potion-making did.
I left the safe confines of the Rùnda with a last awed glance at the double doors that Minerva had realized, and I added them to the endless list of research topics that kept growing despite my steadfast and almost hungry approach when it came to learning magic.
For now, lycanthropy remained my priority, and given my last experiment, or at least its implications, I had a couple of ideas on how to proceed.
The cloudy sky prevented the sun from shining into the hallways and corridors of Hogwarts, and the incoming winter had recently made itself known even inside the castle: we were far from having snow, but there was a chill in the air that made everyone wish for an armchair in front of a fireplace, and hot tea.
I ignored the slight discomfort caused by the cold while my wand found itself in my hand: as easily as I breathed, the picture of a single tongue of golden flame blossomed into my mind, the wavering of hot air and the relaxing of muscles that accompanied a warm bath surrounded that image immediately, and with a twirl of my length of holly, the air touching my skin lost its bite.
I rolled my shoulders as I left the area of the fourth floor that Minerva and Tom had helped me steal away from the common students in my first year, a self-satisfied smile appearing on my features as I abandoned the forma-mentis needed to perform what had been not a mere non-verbal spell, but incantation-less magic.
Wizardkind needed symbols to do magic in a controlled manner: they acted as a bridge between meaning and a tangible result. But all of that took place inside the head of the caster, incantations and wand movements were mere confirmations for the body that the wizard or witch in question was actually trying to cast something.
As Riddle had revealed, a mind exercised Will, a body had strength, and magic held power: but will was nothing else than the hazy element that linked together what already existed with what we wanted to make real.
Our body has strength, obviously enough: but what it actually meant was that it rooted us in the reality that already was, instead of what was going to be once magic happened. Finally, magic had the power to rewrite everything else: both our mind and our bodies.
Mind, Body, Magic: the elements that Riddle had quoted were in relation to each other, it was undeniable.
Hadn't the mere possibility of doing magic brought me to decide to sacrifice Hagrid's father? That was proof that the power of magic could turn your own mind into something different than what it was.
Potions and spells clearly could affect the body too, and I didn't need to look any further than Minerva for the most obvious confirmation.
Through our bodies, we experienced the world around us, which of course influenced our thoughts, and didn't my innate magical resistance prove that our bodies could work with or against magic? Any random magical creature could prove the same.
Finally, the mind shaped our every action, and directed our body.
It was as if Mind, Body, and Magic sat at the points of a triangle, and each side was a two-way road between those three elements. And the soul sits in the center of the triangle, perfectly reflecting each side and point.
I had tried to sidestep the more or less non-sensical incantations and wand movements since day one at Hogwarts, since I knew they weren't truly necessary, and I had maintained a good success in all of my subjects since then
Was it because I was half-giant, and so my body was better suited to perform magic with no need for a precise frame of reference? Was it because I was an adult in mind and soul? I had no idea: the only way to test it was to attempt to teach how I understood magic to a group of eleven years old.
Children, but at that age, kids simply aren't mentally equipped to deal with abstracted concepts. Another group of control would need to be composed by half-breeds.
Lost in my musings, I crossed the four floors that separated me from the dungeons and one of the empty classrooms in which I was to meet Orion Black, and it was likely because of those thoughts that I didn't realize the ambush until I was in the exact middle of it.
An older student leisurely walked out from an alcove placed a few steps ahead of me, the Griffindor colors of his tie and nasty grin telling me all I needed to know while I glanced over my shoulder to spot another two goons that were already holding their wands at the ready.
Should I call myself lucky that I managed to avoid trouble inside the castle up until now?
When the one in front of me started to open his mouth, a taunt of some sort already on his lips, I prevented him by casting the first spell.
Really, bantering with what I could see only as children really wasn't something I wanted to waste my time on.
...
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